What can be done to improve chaos?

[chaplain belisarius]

Wow! thats a lot of ideas dammeron! I reckon if they were perhaps simplified somewhat they would be very good indeed!

 

I love the idea regarding traitor legionnaires but i reckon the rules need to be simplified-as they are they are a teensy bit complicated!

 

I am trying to come up with some rules for each of the "undivided" legions but am struggling somewhat (at the moment, the idea of giving each legion a signature unit they can take as troops plus one or 2 special rules/abilities is the direction im heading in..)

 

@Dammeron-i like your ideas a lot but i just think they need to be a bit more concise and i say that with all my respect mate.

 

I definitely like the idea regarding obliterators as well and would love to debate what should be done to improve chaos with you dammeron.

[chaplain belisarius]

@wolfbiter would each legion having a signature unit that they can take as a 0-1 troops choice be enough to represent each legion? Or would a little special rule be required too? Tell me what you think?

 

Also, i would love to hear from any fellow warsmiths with feedback regarding my ideas for representing iron warriors on the tabletop.

 

Ultimately, i think that the pete haines dex was very good but we need a sort of halfway house between the current dex (which is actually pretty good, but a bit bland!) and the pete haines dex with the legion specific rules and chaotic flavour-but in a less over the top way!

[Wolfbiter]

@Chaplain B:

 

Hmm...since you ask for my two cents, here are my own thoughts on a new Chaos Codex: (Now I'm going to write my own lengthy post, sorry folks!) :)

 

Regarding your question about the Undivided Legions (AL, WB, NL, IW), I'd like to seem some kind of HQ options that gave you a fluffy, but not overwhelmingly unbalanced force organization change or special ability. For example, as I said earlier, being able to take 1 Chosen squad as Troops for AL, maybe bonus to Daemon summoning for WB. For Iron Warriors, maybe a Warsmith HQ that opens up a Tank Hunters upgrade for the Heavy Weapons in Troops slots or for Havocs, perhaps? (Not sure what would be balanced, but I think something like that would be the right direction). I love the way the Ork book did it: Mekboyz as HQ open up Deff Dreads as troops, Warboss on bike opens Bike Boyz as troops, etc. Something like that for Chaos would be nice.

 

I'd also like to see Chaos Lords get some help, either with a point discount or lose some of their disadavantages. Chaos Lords with or without Daemon Weapons seem to come out far more expensive than a Daemon Prince with wings, but with way more handicaps (rolling a 1 for Daemon Weapons; no Eternal Warrior, lower stats). Dreadnoughts and Possessed Marines have also been discussed at length elsewhere. I'd like to see all of these get some combination of rules tweaks to make them more appealing choices, lower points or having their disadvantages at least reduced somewhat, to make them more of an appealing choice. I also wouldn't mind if they increased the cost of Daemon Princes or limited them to 0-1.

 

And please...remove the silly "if your Icon bearer dies, the unit loses the benefit" rule. This not only is more of a disadvantage under the newest rules, it contradicts similar rules in other books (Inquisitorial retinues, for example) and burdens the player with extra bookkeeping, something I thought GW was trying to get away from. I like the idea of Icons; but I think the cost balances them fine without the need for the death/lose benefit rule.

 

I think the biggest problem with the current book is the fluff more than anything else. If you're new to Chaos, there's all this introduction about the Horus Heresy and the Traitor Legions...and suddenly 10,000 years of history is skipped and suddenly Imperial Space Marine chapters are defecting left and right with random paragraphs about 1-2 of the old Legions thrown in at random. If I were new, I'd be totally confused by the random scattershot of fluff in the current book. Lay out the book with a clear history of the Horus Heresy; a short overview of each of the 9 Traitor Legions, their appearance, and fighting style; and then a section on Renegade Marines like the Red Corsairs, etc. Why not have Traitor Legion background fluff for those who like the Legions; and Renegade fluff for those who like Renegades? No reason not to give both equal time in the book.

 

Just a few ideas, I'm sure they need refinement. But I really think if GW fixed at least Icons, Chaos Lords, Dreads and Possessed, and adjusted the fluff to bring back more details on both Traitor Legions and Renegades, they'd be going in the right direction.

 

I've never had complaints about my Death Guard force using the current book; it's solid. It's Undivided themed forces that seem to be harder to capture the right balance betwen flavor and fun for me when I play Chaos. Right now I'm experimenting with re-tooling my own Alpha Legion force to see if I can build an army using just the current Codex but still "feels" enough like Alpha Legion to satisfy my fluff expectations. Haven't had a chance to test it out yet; but I'm curious to see how it works in upcoming games.

 

I think the current Codex has suffered by comparison to all the goodies being handed out in the more recent Codices like Imperial Guard or Space Marines; it even seems more limited than older 'dexes like Orks or Eldar. If they can achieve something similar to the Loyalist Marines book, where there's a ton of different choices that all have their own appeal, rather than a sharp divide between no-brainer powerful choices and severely crippled options, I think that would go a long way toward mending the bitterness some players feel.

[Lucifer216]

A real issue that I think they need to fix is to drastically work on the "not-so-chaotic" CSM legions, such as the Night Lords, Alpha Legion and Iron Warriors. At the end of the day, they need to have something that makes someone want to collect them in terms of rules, as although they all have really good background, courtesy of Black Library, there is little point collecting them if you already have a loyalist space marine army.

 

In my mind there are four natural divisions with the CSM codex:

 

Legions/warbands that embrace one of the big four powers: World Eaters, Death Guard, Thousand Sons and Emperor's Children

Legions/warbands that embrace Chaos undivided: Black Legion, Word Bearers

Legions/warbands that although fight on the side of Chaos are ambivalent about it and disprove of daemonic patronage and mutations: Iron Warriors (to some extent), Night Lords and Alpha Legion.

 

A successful new codex needs to make all of these options appealling in terms of rules and make them offer a different play experience to each other and the loyalist SM codexs.

[chaplain belisarius]

Thanks guys!

 

@wolfbiter-i agree there mate, something like in the ork dex or eldar codex that lets you take a characterful unit for your legion.

 

IW-1 unit of obliterators as troops

night lord-1 unit of raptors as troops

wordbearers-bonus to daemon summoning/dark apostle

alpha legion-chosen as troops

black legion-can take anything

 

legion specific armies can only take 0-1 unit of cult troops, can only take mark of chaos undivided (except BL who can take whatever they want!)

 

Is this better than my earlier ideas?

[tyrannosaurus]

Easiest way to improve current dex:

 

"Armies with legion/god specific HQs may upgrade any troop choices to legion/god specific units [of the same god/legion] for X number of points". [noise marines for armies led by Slaanesh DP/Lucius, NL raptors with terrifying visage for armies with NL HQ, infiltrating troops for AL etc.]

 

That way NL armies would be full of kick-ass raptors, AL full of nfiltrators, ECs noise marines, giving armies flavour but also making them competitive. Also if you wanted to go down the god specific warband route then you could take an HQ with a mark.

 

Black Legion/undecided warbands would follow the current dex [which is, after all, Codex: Black Legion].

[Zeruel]

Another thing I had been thinking about was the whole Cult Terminator problem. What if each cult troop choice simply had an option to upgrade to Terminator Armour and becoming an Elite choice for doing so? That would be a lot easier than trying to tailor Terminators to work for every cult with Marks and such. Also I'd like to see Chosen replace infiltrate with Veteran Skills which would bring back the idea that we've been around fighting longer. Instead of purchasing Veteran skills in the past though make it more like Imperial Guard Veterans where they pay a certain amount of points for the unit or per model for a certain set of skills and/or wargear. I'd also like to see them get the option to take unlimited champions like our Terminators can currently.

[Lord of Worms]

There's a good homebrew codex here: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207375

The updated version is further down the page. I don't like a few of the things he put in, like the subjugators and Doomwings. Subjugators are Knight-Class war machines not dreadnoughts. I also disagree with the putting in any airplanes to any codex (hydras as well). If people want to play with planes the forgeworld rules were better.

All in all though, the codex took minor tweaks to fix the overwhelming majority of the problems with the current one. It bodes well for the upcoming offical 'dex.

 

Summary

1.) Exalted Champions as HQ choice; I like the option of having a cheap leader instead of a 130+ point sink when I play 1000pt games.

2.) Sorcerors get a few better powers, can cast the same power twice

3.)Separates troops into Legionaries and Renegades; refines Marks and Icons

4.)Includes Cultists; may not be taken as compulsory troops, never count as scoring units

5.)HQs and Terminators can take proper marks, ie. Nurgle lords have FnP etc..

6.)Dreadnaught will only shoot your own guys in Fire Frenzy if he can't shoot the opponent, may take God specific gifts.

7.) Daemon Princes get gifts inline with Daemons codex

 

He didn't get to the Special Characters yet, or the "Summoned Daemons" dilemma.

Part of the problem with the current codex isn't the book itself, but how well it fits with the current ruleset. Force Weapons are substantially crappier than before, being irrelevant against Eternal Warrior and Daemons (what they were originally designed to kill), being able to nullify them, etc... The Land Raider Phobos in CSM is substantially crappier than the Loyalist version without Machine Spirit in the 5th Ed, the Daemonic Possession is a poor consolation prize.